IRON SHIPS OF WAR; FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF IRON ARMOUR TO BROADSIDE
AND TURRET SHIPS
When the Crimean War broke out, Great Britain and France shared the
naval leadership of the world. Nearly all the other nations had
warships of one kind or another, but the finest specimens were to
be found in the fleets of those two powers. They included the _Duke
of Wellington_, fitted with screw engines of 700 h.p. and carrying
one hundred and thirty-one guns; the _Agamemnon_, of 600 h.p. and
ninety-one guns; and the frigate _Shannon_, of 600 h.p. and fifty-one
guns, to mention three of the best examples of their classes.
Russia had some powerful vessels, including a few steam warships, but
her naval resources were not equal to those of either of the allies.
The French and English naval reviews in 1853 and 1854 were instructive
as showing the improvements which had been effected in the preceding
fifteen or twenty years. The screw propeller was so advantageous a
method of propulsion that the conversion of sailing vessels into
steamers went on apace in all the navies of Europe, and the United
States, which usually did not at that time trouble about European
naval developments, caught the infection and not only built steam
frigates, but transformed some of its smaller vessels also to augment
the steam warships it had already found necessary for its operations
in the Mexican Gulf, the West Indies, and elsewhere. The frigate
was a favourite type of ship with the Americans, and whether in the
sailing days or after the adoption of steam for warships, the American
frigates were equal to those to be found anywhere.
The naval force which went to the Crimea was largely steam-driven. The
Battle of Sinope, in November, 1853, in which the Russians annihilated
a Turkish fleet, proved alike the superiority of a steam war fleet
over a sailing fleet, and, incidentally, the range and power of the
Russian guns. The Russian squadron was more powerful in every way,
but its great superiority lay in its heavy artillery; all the Russian
ships of the line carried smooth-bore guns which could fire shells,
and the shells, exploding, set fire to and demolished the Turks in a
few minutes. This demonstration of the effectiveness of the Muscovite
weapons showed the allies for what they ought to be prepared when
the expected war broke out; but the Russians knew that in fighting
capacity their fleets were no match for the British and French fleets,
so their vessels were kept under the protection of the Russian forts,
and for the most part destroyed a few at a time as the war went on.
The Russians are not to be blamed for shirking a naval battle, for
the British and French were the greatest naval forces in the world,
splendidly equipped and ready for the fray; whereas the Russians do not
take kindly to naval warfare--as events half a century later showed.
Many of the Russian ships were hastily equipped; it was currently
reported in this country that some of them were engined with converted
railway locomotives. All the Russian ships, however, were not of this
type. Some were built on the Thames, among the number being the paddle
frigate _Vladimir_, which gave a good account of herself in more
than one engagement. She was a wooden vessel, and at the time of her
construction in 1848, was considered to display a remarkable amount of
symmetry of form, and to be of very considerable magnitude. Her length
between perpendiculars was 200 feet, and her burthen 1,200 tons. She
carried two 10-inch pivot guns, and four 8-inch guns mounted on sliding
carriages.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “CENTAUR,” “BULLDOG” AND “IMPERIEUSE” ENGAGED
WITH SIX RUSSIAN GUNBOATS OFF CRONSTADT, 1855.]
[Illustration: SECTIONAL MODEL OF RUSSIAN MAN-OF-WAR, 1854, IN THE
MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICE INSTITUTION.]
The paddle frigate _Retribution_, a typical specimen of her class,
launched at Chatham in 1844, was selected to proceed to Sebastopol in
1854 to demand the release of the engineers taken prisoners at the
Battle of Sinope, who were in the service of the Porte. She was of
about 1,641 tons and had engines on Maudslay’s Siamese pattern of 400
h.p., and carried a crew of three hundred men. Her armament consisted
of twenty-eight guns of a “very persuasive size”--their persuasiveness
was fully demonstrated in the subsequent proceedings in the Crimea.
The naval operations before Sebastopol and Cronstadt proved by no means
satisfactory to the attacking vessels. The latter were not weak as
fighting ships, for they constituted the most powerful line-of-battle
ships ever constructed up to that period, and nearly all of them were
screw-propelled. The principal guns in the Russian forts were heavier
than any carried afloat by the allies, and not only fired a heavier
and more penetrating shot, but shell also--this being the first war in
which modern explosive shells were used--and had an effective range far
in excess of that of the ships’ guns.
The great three-deckers which assailed the fortifications of Sebastopol
and Cronstadt were prevented by the shallowness of the water from
getting near enough to inflict serious damage irrespective of what
they might themselves sustain, a course which was certainly urged, if
channels could be found, especially by some strategists who, being
at home, would not be exposed to the danger, and ignored the fact
that the ships, if stranded, could be shelled at leisure. In the
fleets’ attack upon Sebastopol the sailing warships were provided with
attendant steamers lashed alongside to render them assistance when
their positions had to be changed. But the range at which, for the most
part, the allies’ warships had to operate rendered them comparatively
ineffective, and when Kinburn, like Cronstadt, proved a tougher
nut to crack--a characteristic it shared with many of the Russian
defences--than the allies expected, the English and French could do
nothing but blockade the places and adopt other means of reducing the
fortresses than by bombarding them from their big wooden battleships.
Two fresh problems had thus been created for solution. The first and
most pressing was to provide the type of ship best fitted to cope with
the Russian batteries. Hitherto, engagements between fortresses and
battleships had been fairly equal because the guns employed by one side
would be much the same as those of the other, while the ships had the
further advantages of being able to shift their positions as suited
them best, and to concentrate the fire of their broadsides wherever
necessary. The majority of shore and battery engagements ended in
victories for the ships.
The second problem was how to carry more powerful guns afloat, and how
to strengthen the sides of the hulls supporting them so as to offer
adequate resistance to the projectiles of equally heavy guns carried by
hostile ships or discharged from the enemy’s forts. The first problem
was found to be comparatively easy, notwithstanding that the solution
when proposed was declared by many to be impossible. It had, moreover,
an important influence upon the attempted solution of the second
problem. The latter was even thought to be no more difficult than the
other, but the effort to grapple with it marked the beginning of the
great struggle between guns and armour, and the introduction of the
question of long range as against short range fighting, the end whereof
is not yet.
Some little time before the war, the Emperor of the French expressed
the opinion that armoured vessels of the types the Americans had
devised, notably Stevens’s and Ericsson’s ships, were more suitable
for purposes of war than the large two-deckers and three-deckers. He
was confirmed in this opinion by the experiences of the big ships in
the attack upon Fort Constantine, and though the opposition to his
views was great, and it was pointed out that the forts must ultimately
be starved into surrendering, he maintained that this would take too
long and that the forts must be attacked by other means. His Majesty
himself, who had devoted considerable attention to the subject,
was largely responsible for the design of the five armoured French
gunboats which were destined to bring about the abandonment of the
great three-deckers and initiate as remarkable a revolution in warship
construction as the introduction of steam was causing in naval tactics.
These floating batteries--a term borrowed from the Americans--were the
_Lave_, _Tonnante_, _Congreve_, _Foudroyant_ and _Dévastation_. Their
dimensions were similar: 1,400 tons displacement, 164 feet in length,
42 feet 6 inches beam, and drawing only 8 feet of water. They were
built with massive wooden frames, to which were attached oaken sides
8 inches in thickness, and outside this was iron plating 4⅜ inches
thick. The _Tonnante_, launched at Brest in March, 1855, was the first
afloat--the first iron-clad citadel ship built in Europe. After the
Emperor had decided on the plans and the vessels were in course of
construction, Ericsson communicated with his Majesty on the subject.
He was not aware that the Emperor had already determined on the plans
of the ironclads, or he would scarcely have gone to the trouble of
writing, for his experience of European governments was not such as
to lead him to think that they would admit he was able to teach them
anything. He is variously said to have offered to design a turret
ship for the Emperor, and to have presented to the Emperor plans of a
partially submerged armoured vessel with guns in a revolving shot-proof
cupola placed centrally on the deck. In either case, however, he was
too late. Whether he would have been called upon, had the Emperor’s
gunboats been unsuccessful, is a point upon which there has been much
conjecture.
In designing these vessels, the Emperor had in mind that they should be
cheaper and more easily and rapidly built than ships of the line, that
they should draw little water, that they should be capable of being
served by a small crew, and that they should be covered with an armour
against which hollow shot fired from Paixhan guns “should be broken
like glass,” according to the _Moniteur_. Experiments made at Vincennes
revealed the required strength and thickness of the defensive iron
plates. The external protection was to be able to defy alike shell,
solid or hollow shot, cold or red-hot shot. The Imperial designer even
chose the name of the type to indicate that these vessels were not to
be considered as built to pursue an enemy, but were siege batteries,
capable of attacking with energy and persistence fortifications
heretofore regarded as unassailable by sea.
The results of the preliminary artillery trials were communicated to
the British, and trials made in England confirmed those of the French.
The British authorities, being convinced that iron-clad vessels were
necessary for the reduction of the Russian forts, followed the example
of the French and ordered several. These vessels were required both
in the Baltic and before Sebastopol. One of these floating batteries,
intended for the attack on the Cronstadt forts, was the _Terror_.
Beauty was one characteristic she did not possess. She was equally
bluff at the bows and stern, and could move either end foremost
to facilitate her manœuvring in an engagement. She was built,
armour-plated, and launched in about three months; this rapidity of
construction, as it was then considered, was due to Palmer’s invention,
whereby plates were rolled instead of being forged.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “WARRIOR.” _Photograph by permission of the
Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: THE “TERROR.” _By permission of Palmer’s Shipbuilding
and Ironworks, Ltd._]
The English-built _Glatton_ and _Trusty_ differed from the other
floating batteries constructed at this time, as they were pierced
for sixteen guns, as against twelve for the others. As innovations
they were unmercifully criticised. Their portholes, measuring 3 feet
4 inches by 4 feet 10 inches, were considered much too large. They
were rigged as three-masted schooners, of all rigs in the world, with
two square sails on the foremast. “Why such things as these should be
completely equipped and rigged, we cannot, for the life of us, divine.
The Admiralty is decidedly masting mad.”[34]
They were 172 feet 9 inches between perpendiculars, 43 feet 8 inches
extreme breadth, with 14 feet 7 inches depth of hold, and 7 feet
9 inches draught, and they were of 1,469 tons. The two decks were
of oak 9 inches thick, resting on beams 10½ inches square, which
were placed 21 inches apart from centre to centre, the beams being
supported amidships by stanchions hinged so that they could be hung
up out of the way in action. The frames, iron plates, and planking
were altogether 2 feet thick on the sides. The engines were of 150
h.p., of the non-condensing type, and with four tubular, cylindrical,
flat-ended boilers with two furnaces each, the pressure being 60 lb.
to the inch above that of the atmosphere. Owing to their slow speed,
for they could only make three knots, it was decided to give them two
additional or wing screws. These batteries, according to those who had
to handle them, would “neither sail, steam, stay, nor steer,” and might
be depended upon to affect the men’s health injuriously. Jury rudders
had to be rigged up to get them along. All these floating batteries,
whether French or English, were equally slow, and equally bad sea-boats.
The gunboats of the _Trusty_ class were wooden-built and armoured; the
_Erebus_ class, launched in 1854-56, were iron-built.
The floating batteries were regarded with hope by those who were
prepared to believe that the ironclad system would prove effective,
and with undisguised contempt by the majority. What, it was asked,
could these little unwieldy vessels do when the great line-of-battle
ships were not equal to the task of reducing the fortifications?
Still, as the Emperor had ordered them, it was but right that the
experiment should be made. So when, in October, 1855, the great attack
was begun, the three floating batteries which had arrived, steamed
slowly into position, and came to anchor between 700 and 800 yards of
the Kinburn forts. A correspondent who visited the _Dévastation_ after
the bombardment, “left her with the conviction that, in the attack
of maritime fortresses, a new era had commenced.... The bulwarks had
been removed from the deck, to lessen the mark, and the funnels of the
steam engine alone projected. The captain conned the ship standing on
the companion, and giving directions to the helmsman below; and when
the vessel came to an anchor he remained below. Twelve embrasures were
opened, and the effect as witnessed from the village was terrific,
whilst that of the enemy’s guns upon her was very slight indeed. She
had three men killed and six or seven wounded through shots entering
the portholes, one shell bursting inside. Not a shot from the enemy
damaged the _Dévastation_ in the slightest degree. She was hulled
sixty or seventy times, the balls each time bounding from her sides
harmless into the water, leaving their marks, it is true, in the shape
of dents, in some cases an inch and a half deep, but inflicting no
real damage on plates of iron four inches in thickness. This, the first
experiment, proved that at a distance of 800 yards, 32- and 18-pounders
are harmless against the sides of a floating battery, and the trial
has been made first by the French, the arrival of the _Meteor_ and
_Glatton_ being delayed.” When they did arrive the work for which they
were intended had been accomplished. The _Dévastation_ and her two
sisters had platforms on stanchions near the water’s edge; upon each
platform were fifty French riflemen who made excellent practice upon
the Russian gunners.
The Prussian Government ordered from Messrs. Robinson and Russell, in
1851, two paddle-wheel gunboats called _Nix_ and _Salamander_. They
were double-ended and could go either end foremost, and though they
could take enough coal to carry them two thousand miles, they only drew
7 feet. Their load displacement was 468 tons, and their oscillating
cylinder condensing engines gave them, together with their sails, a
speed of a little over 11½ knots. The British Government exchanged the
36-gun frigate _Thetis_ for them, and having renamed them _Recruit_ and
_Weser_, sent them to the war.
They were the only vessels of their class in the British navy. The
former was employed in the operations in the Sea of Azoff, and both
were held to combine the three essential features of light draught,
ability to carry heavy armament, and to possess the highest known rate
of speed, so as to give them the power of choosing their own time
and place of attack. The _Recruit_ mounted four 68-pounders on her
stanchions and bombarded the Russian positions at Taganrog at 1,400
yards, in company with a French steamer, the _Mouette_.
Among the numerous types of boats, recognised as belonging to the
navy or improvised for some special circumstance, few acquired during
the campaign in the Baltic greater renown than the mortar-boats, the
gunboats, and the ships’ boats with their rocket apparatus. In the
Baltic, as in the Black Sea, the need was felt of small, shallow,
powerful ships which could engage the enemy’s batteries at short range,
and similar batteries to those sent to the Crimea were forwarded to the
Baltic also. The same difficulty of shallow water was experienced by
the forces in the Sea of Azoff. So there was improvised by the officers
and crew of the _Stromboli_ a remarkable raft of twenty-nine casks
placed in six rows and cradled in a framework of heavy spars, a portion
of the upper part being planked over. The gun tackles were fastened to
a spar lashed over the front of the planking, and the train tackle was
similarly fixed aft. She was named the _Lady Nancy_. Her construction
took twelve hours, and she carried a long 32-pounder, weighing over 2
tons, 100 rounds of ammunition, a heavy hawser, and a crew of eighteen.
She gave a good account of herself at the Battle of Taganrog.
A fleet of screw gunboats, numbering nearly a hundred, and having
engines of 60 h.p. each, was added to Britain’s naval strength during
the war. These vessels were armed with 68- and 32-pounder pivot guns
and 24-pounder brass howitzers. “The possession of this force,”
according to a contemporary writer, “cannot be too highly estimated.
No line-of-battle ship could be safe at 1,000 yards range, and, owing
to their light draught of water (four and six feet), they could force
their passage through the most shallow of the enemy’s creeks; besides
which their 68-pound shells would tell at 4,000 yards upon a ship
or arsenal.” Another hundred of these were all but completed, and
the whole force was to take part in the great review at Spithead in
1856. “There will also,” said the chronicler, “be a new description
of screw-gun despatch vessels, equally elegant and powerful. These
beautiful specimens of British naval architecture have been built in
the Government and private yards; they will average a speed of 16 knots
an hour, and will mount five of the heaviest pivot guns. In addition
to these there will be one hundred iron and wood mortar-vessels of the
most powerful build, each armed with a 18-inch mortar, weighing five
tons, besides half a dozen mortar-frigates (old 42’s converted). To sum
up, then, England is prepared with:--Line-of-battle ships, 42; heavy
frigates, 56; corvettes, 123; gunboats, 220; mortar-vessels, 100; troop
frigates, 10; transports, 340. And nearly the whole of this gigantic
force is composed of screw or paddle-box ships, besides an immense
reserve. Well may Russia be desirous of coming to terms.”
After the feverish activity of the war came a period of comparative
inaction. The whole political atmosphere of the world, however, was
too heavily charged--too electric, as it were, to permit of hopes of
lasting peace. In the United States of America the tension between
the northern and southern states was already becoming acute, while
in Europe the prevailing attitude of the powers towards one another
was that of frigid politeness, which at any moment might thaw into
hostilities. So there was no lack of incentive to continue the
development of the fighting marine. The principal reasons why more was
not done at this time were that naval architects and administrators
were at the parting of the ways. Some urged that the types with which
they were familiar should be adhered to, and that though armoured
vessels were useful in the war against Russia, where peculiar
conditions had to be met, it did not follow that such vessels would
be of use in another war; and it was pointed out that they would
be of no value whatever in a naval engagement on account of their
unseaworthiness, or rather clumsiness, and the difficulty of handling
them. Others, more far-seeing, urged that iron-clad vessels were
bound to come sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, since it
had been demonstrated that such were not only possible but, so far as
they had been used in the war, effective, and that they showed that
vessels of less size, armour-plated and carrying a few heavy guns,
would be more than a match for any wooden line-of-battle ship afloat.
It was contended that the gunboats which silenced the Kinburn forts
would be able to give a good account of themselves against the best
three-deckers in the allied fleets. But the Admiralty, still convinced
of the excellence of the type which had done so well in the past,
retained that type and went on building wooden ships, as for that
matter did all the admiralties of the world.
In 1858, there was designed the last and the finest line-of-battle
ship constructed of wood for the British navy. She was launched at
Portsmouth in 1859, and commissioned in 1864, and under the name of the
_Victoria_ served as flagship in the Mediterranean, and was removed
from active service three years later. She was a screw steamer, with
horizontal return-connecting-rod engines by Maudslay, indicating 4,000
h.p., and with the boilers giving 22 lb. pressure she could steam at 12
miles an hour. She carried, on her upper deck, twenty-two 32-pounders
and one 68-pounder; on her main deck thirty-four 32-pounders, on her
middle deck thirty-two guns of the same size, and on her lower deck
thirty-two 8-inch guns. A comparison of her armament and that of the
next _Victoria_ shows the remarkable change made in the course of a
few years in naval artillery, no less than in the arrangement of the
weapons on ship board.
But whatever may have been the conservative official view, the lessons
of the armour-clads in the Crimean War were not thrown away, and many
naval designers were attempting to solve the problem of the best
means of applying those lessons to the altered conditions of modern
naval warfare. Guns were invented, more powerful than any wooden ship
could hope to withstand, and it was admitted to be impossible to place
as many of them on a ship as of the ordinary weapons. The turret and
the broadside systems had already been suggested, and both had their
enthusiastic advocates.
The report presented by a Royal Commission appointed in 1858 to
consider the relative strength of the British and French navies, first
compared the state of the navies of the two powers before the Crimean
War with that prevailing afterwards. In 1850 the line-of-battle ships
of both countries were sailers, as were nearly all the frigates. The
steam fleet of England at the time of the Crimean War was superior to
that of France, which at one time had only one screw line-of-battle
ship, the _Austerlitz_, available for the Baltic; but after the war the
French lost little time in converting several of their sailing ships
into steamships.
A return accompanying this report shows that although the British had
five steam line-of-battle ships for every four possessed by France,
including those completed or still under construction, the French had
forty-six steam frigates to thirty-four possessed by this country. The
report contained one significant item, viz., that four iron-plated
ships were being built by France, and these, “appearing so ominously,
had completely changed the situation.”[35]
The French naval architect, Dupuy de Lôme, was responsible for this
innovation, and the four vessels were a testimony to his genius. The
first of the quartette to be launched was the _Gloire_. Originally
designed as a 90-gun battleship, she took the water as a 60-gun
armoured frigate. She was of 5,650 tons displacement, and her three
sisters were slightly smaller. Her armour was of iron, 4½ to 4¾ inches
thick. She was not, as is sometimes asserted, armoured all over, but
was plated her whole length along the water-line and for some little
distance above it, and her central battery was also protected by a belt
extending above the water-line belt. The engines worked up to about
4,200 h.p. indicated.
Iron armour over a wooden frame suggested a compromise in the matter
of construction with which the Admiralty did not at all agree. It,
therefore, decided on building an iron ship in reply to the _Gloire_,
and the _Warrior_ was the first seagoing ironclad. In her external
appearance there was nothing to distinguish her from the average wooden
steam frigate of the time, except her extraordinary length. She was a
three-masted square-rigged ship, with a graceful overhanging cutwater,
her dimensions being as follows: length, 380 feet, and 420 feet over
all; draught, 25½ feet; depth from spar deck to keel, 41 feet 6 inches.
Her engines of 1,250 h.p. nominal gave her a speed of nearly 14½ knots.
She carried twenty-eight 7-inch muzzle-loading rifle guns, two other
rifle guns, and two 20-pounder breech-loading rifle guns. She was built
at what is now the Thames Ironworks, then the no less celebrated yard
of Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare.
In describing the vessel, the builders say: “It may be of interest to
note here that the _Warrior’s_ armour plates were all fitted at edges
and butts with tongues and grooves, the tongues being formed solid out
of the plate 1¼ inch wide and ½ inch deep, the grooves being formed
slightly larger to facilitate entering. This plan, which was very
costly, and was suggested by the curving out of the plates tested at
Shoeburyness after being struck by the shot, was not repeated in later
vessels, in view of the great difficulty in replacing damaged plates.
It is not generally known that the _Warrior_, though a sea-going
warship, had a ram bow, the greatest projection being at about the
water-line, the head knee or cutwater being brought on independently
after the ram was completed, to maintain the then usual appearance of
the frigates of the English navy.”[36]
Besides the side armour, the fore and after ends of the main deck
carrying the battery were protected by armoured bulkheads. The great
length of the vessel rendered it impossible to armour her entirely, as
had she been armoured from end to end the protection afforded to the
vital parts of the ship would have been insufficient to withstand the
heaviest artillery of the time. Therefore, some 85 feet at either end
were left unprotected, and the weight of armour thus saved was added to
that covering the central portions of the ship, so that she would be
enabled to withstand the worst fire an enemy could bring to bear upon
her. It was contended that were her unarmoured ends to be shot away or
riddled and rendered useless, her armoured portion would remain afloat,
an invulnerable citadel. The belt of armour on the broadside was 22
feet deep, and was backed by 18 inches of teak.
In every respect, save, perhaps, that of manœuvring, she was an
improvement upon her French rival. Her ports were about 8 feet 6 inches
from the water as compared with 5 feet 8 inches in the _Gloire_, those
of the latter, though comparing favourably with the distance which
prevailed in the earlier ships of the line, both sail and steam, being
considered much too near the water to permit of her main deck guns
being fought except in fine weather. Her gun carriages, too, were a
great improvement upon anything of the kind that had been fitted in an
English ship. A system of pivoting the carriages under the trunnions
of the guns was applied, so that the guns could be trained through
portholes only 2 feet wide, or half the size of those fitted in other
ships, and as the sides of the ports were plated with 7-inch iron, an
additional measure of protection was afforded the crew. Her tonnage was
6,177 tons, builder’s measurement, but her total weight with stores and
guns was about 9,000 tons.
The _Warrior_ was a combination of the longitudinal system of ship
construction designed by Scott Russell, and the ordinary method of
transverse framing, the plans being prepared by the Admiralty. The
sixth longitudinal was used to rest the backing and armour upon. The
unprotected ends of the vessel were built on the transverse system,
and were given a number of watertight compartments. An important
feature in the construction was that the transverse plates between the
longitudinals were solid but had three holes cut in them to lighten
them, and it was in dealing with these plates that some of the earliest
improvements were made in following ships. As a further means of giving
strength, a vertical watertight longitudinal bulkhead extended from the
third longitudinal on each side up to the main deck, to which it was
rigidly secured, thus forming an exceedingly strong wing passage and
box girder, which was further strengthened by transverse bulkheads. She
had not a complete double bottom. Externally, she was fitted with two
bilge keels to prevent rolling.
The _Black Prince_, which followed the _Warrior_, was 380 feet in
length, and exceeded the length of the _Gloire_ by 130 feet; her beam
was 58 feet 4 inches, and her displacement 9,210 tons. She also was
a full-rigged ship, and had an overhanging or schooner bow, the ram
being thought unnecessary, as ramming was no longer looked upon as an
important feature of naval tactics.
“These were the last, however, in which the essentials of pictorial
beauty were held of paramount importance.”[37]
The attitude of the Admiralty in regard to steam had hitherto been that
in many respects it must be auxiliary to sail. The _Black Prince’s_
armour, though only 4½ inches thick, was considered to offer an
adequate resistance to the 68-pounder gun’s projectile, and this,
too, after the experience gained in the Crimean War; besides which no
allowance whatever was made for the probability that more powerful
guns, firing heavier projectiles than any yet known, would shortly be
in existence, especially as they were already being designed. Although
called an ironclad, the _Black Prince_ would be better described as
“armour-patched,” for only 213 feet on each side was armour-protected.
The rest of the hull, including even the steering gear, was as
unarmoured and unprotected as that of any sailer of a century before.
The ends of the armoured belts, however, were united by iron plated
bulkheads, so that the armoured portion of the ship formed a central
or box battery. In order to add to the safety of the ship, in case of
its penetration by a hostile shot, a number of watertight compartments
was built into her, thereby ensuring a certain amount of buoyancy. This
vessel, like the _Warrior_, was “unhandy,” to use a sailor’s phrase,
as were all her class, their length making them difficult to steer, on
account of the amount of room required in which to turn. Indeed, they
were so awkward that in manœuvres it was necessary to keep them four
cables’ lengths apart instead of the two cables’ lengths customary with
other vessels. The _Black Prince_ carried four 9-ton guns and twenty
6½-ton guns, all muzzle-loaders. These ships were unquestionably most
impressive from the spectacular point of view, and, compared with
the wooden ships they superseded, their fighting value was great.
They were practically the forerunners of the class represented by the
three iron sisters, _Agincourt_, _Minotaur_, and _Northumberland_.
The last named, a ship-rigged, armoured, first-class cruiser, was
begun in 1865, by the Millwall Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company,
and completed in 1868, the designs being prepared by the Admiralty.
At first it was proposed that she should have only three masts, and
as many as fifty-eight guns, but during the process of construction,
it was decided to increase the number of masts to five and to reduce
the number of guns to twenty-eight more powerful than those originally
intended. Her design, and that of her sisters, represented a curious
adherence to a belief in the necessity of sail, tempered by a desire
to a compromise in the matter of more modern artillery. When launched,
she had four 12-ton muzzle-loading rifle guns and twenty-two 9-ton
8-inch muzzle-loading rifles on the main deck, while on her upper
deck were two 6.5-ton 7-inch breech-loading rifle guns. Her armour
was 5½ inches thick, with 9 inches of teak backing, and was extended
throughout her entire length with the double purpose of protecting the
ends and steering gear, and of allowing her fore and after guns to be
fired from behind armour. This, of course, meant a greater weight to be
carried, and it could only be done, if speed were not to be sacrificed,
by increasing the length of the vessel. So far as manœuvring was
concerned, these ships were much worse than their predecessors.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “BLACK PRINCE.” _Photograph by Symonds & Co.,
Portsmouth._]
[Illustration: THE “BANGOR,” FIRST IRON SEA-GOING PROPELLER STEAMER IN
THE UNITED STATES. _From a Print in the possession of, and reproduced
by permission of, the Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation, U.S.A._]
Their engines were on Penn’s trunk system, with two cylinders of 112
inches diameter, and a stroke of 52 inches. Each had ten boilers with
four furnaces per boiler, the total grate area being 956 square feet,
and the steam was supplied up to a pressure of 25 lb. per square inch.
These ships each carried a four-bladed Mangin propeller of 24 feet
diameter, which was adjustable so that the pitch could be altered
from 22½ feet to 28½ feet. The _Northumberland_ was the first war
vessel on which Macfarlane Gray’s steam steering gear, originally
invented for the _Great Eastern_, was installed. These three vessels
were 400 feet 3 inches in length, and had a beam of a fraction over 59
feet, and drew 27 feet 3 inches, with a displacement of about 10,786
tons.
Before referring to the historic American ships of the third quarter of
the last century, some attention may be given to a remarkable vessel
which passed into the possession of the United States Government.
The steamer _Bangor_ was built by the firm of Betts, Harlan and
Hollingsworth (now the Harlan and Hollingsworth Corporation), in
1843-4, for the Bangor Steam Navigation Company, of Maine, and was
the first iron sea-going propeller steamer constructed in the United
States. The hull was formed of bar iron ribs or frames secured by
numerous wrought-iron clamps, and her plating was put on in the lapped
or “clinker” style, instead of the modern inside and outside method of
arranging the sheets.
The _Bangor_ measured 231 tons burthen; her length over all was about
131 feet; length between perpendiculars, 120 feet; beam moulded, 23
feet; and depth of hold from base line amidships, 9 feet. She had three
wooden masts, with bowsprit and jib-boom, and was schooner-rigged,
carrying a suit of eight sails. Passengers were carried aft in a
commodious deck-house fitted up in a style of elegance unusual in those
days, and considered particularly handsome by her owners and builders.
There were but two deck-houses upon the vessel at the time she was
built, the third or forward house, as shown in the illustration, having
been added afterwards.
Her machinery consisted of independent twin-screw propeller engines,
having cylinders 22 inches in diameter by 24 inches stroke of piston.
The propeller wheels were of the Loper type and 8½ feet in diameter.
Her boiler was placed in the hold and was of iron, 20 feet in length,
of the type known as the “drop flue” boiler. On her trial trip she
averaged 10.61 miles per hour at one time. The first five miles were
run with low steam, making forty-four revolutions. The pressure of
steam was under 46 lb. to the square inch during the whole trip.
Afterwards with full steam the speed per hour was 14.07 miles. From
this, however, there should be deducted 2½ miles for tide, giving
an actual speed of 11.57 miles per hour. On the second trip of the
_Bangor_ from Boston, she caught fire, and was beached upon the New
England coast, near Nantucket, in order to save the crew and freight.
She was afterward adjudged a wreck, the insurance settlement was
effected, and she was towed to a New England shipyard (probably
at Bath, Me.), where she was repaired and rebuilt. She afterwards
continued to run on the same line until she was, in 1846, purchased by
the United States Government, and re-named the _Scourge_ at the time of
the outbreak of the Mexican War. During her employ as a war vessel she
was equipped with three guns. After two years of war service, she was,
on October 7th, 1848, finally sold by the Government to John F. Jeter,
of Lafayette, Louisiana. From the date of this transfer no trace of
her can be found. It is possible that she may have been either lost by
fire or storm, or have been dismantled and altered for other than her
natural purposes.
A visit was paid to England in October, 1856, on her trial cruise, by
a ship which was destined to have considerable influence in the not
distant future upon warship construction, and to help to revolutionise
completely all the hitherto accepted theories. This was the famous
_Merrimac_--the first of six steam frigates the United States had
constructed. She was considered by her designers to be a match for any
vessel afloat on the European side of the Atlantic, and as a specimen
of the American fondness for fast and heavily armed frigates, a type
of vessel in which they excelled, she left nothing to be desired.
Naturally, she attracted a great deal of attention.
The _Merrimac_--she came to England under that name, and not as the
_Virginia_, as sometimes stated--was 300 feet over all, and 250 feet on
the keel, and 260 feet on the load water-line, and was 51 feet 4 inches
beam, and drew 28 feet of water. She was of 3,987 tons measurement, and
4,500 tons displacement. Her engines were of 600 h.p. and presented
several peculiarities. The cylinders were of 72 inches diameter, with a
stroke of three feet, and there were two rods to each piston. Her screw
propeller was on Griffith’s system, and had means of varying the pitch.
Normally the screw had a pitch of 26 feet 2 inches; its diameter was
17 feet 4 inches. She had four of Martin’s vertical tubular boilers.
The frame of the ship was of live oak, crossed internally with two sets
of diagonal iron plates, inclined in opposite directions, and similar
plates on the outside strengthened her bow and stern. Her model, or
shape, is said to have been of considerable beauty, while her internal
arrangements for the comfort and accommodation of the officers and
crew were of a high order. She could spread 56,629 feet of canvas, and
nautical men here were of opinion that she could easily have borne
heavier masts and spars and so have spread more canvas still. However,
the weight of her armament had to be considered, and this may have been
one reason why she was not more heavily equipped aloft. She was pierced
for sixty guns, but on account of the weight and size and effectiveness
of those she had, the number on board was only forty. Nevertheless,
she was claimed to be, and with good reason, as powerful as anything
Europe could show. Two large pivot guns, of 10 inches calibre, and
each weighing nearly 5½ tons, were on the upper deck, together with
fourteen 8-inch guns, weighing more than three tons each; while on
the gun-deck were twenty-four 9-inch guns, each weighing close upon
4½ tons. All these guns were strong enough to fire solid shot, but
they were intended to take hollow shot or shell, a custom to which the
Americans attached considerable importance. The guns were built on the
Dahlgren system, which gave them throughout their length a thickness
proportionate to the pressure caused by the explosion of an ordinary
service charge of powder. The adaptation of these guns to the Paixhan
system of shell-firing was another novelty she presented. As solid
shot were more destructive against fortifications and heavy works than
the shells or hollow shot--uncharged shells that is--the naval experts
of Europe did not look favourably upon explosive shells, preferring
to consider them more suitable for large swivel guns, such as were
sometimes mounted on the sponsons of paddle boats. The _Merrimac_ had
not a solid shot on board. Her guns were of unusual thickness at the
breech and thinner than the European guns in that part called the
chase, which lies between the trunnions and the muzzle. Their mounting,
also, presented some peculiarities. There was no hinder truck, the
force of the recoil being taken up by the friction of the carriage
against the deck, but the gun recoiled sufficiently on discharge to
permit of reloading; while, instead of the hinder truck, a contrivance
attached to the end of a handspike was thrust under the gun carriage.
There were, in addition, a number of smaller guns.
[Illustration: THE “MERRIMAC” BEFORE CONVERSION.]
[Illustration: THE “MERRIMAC” AS CONVERTED INTO AN IRONCLAD. _From
Photographs supplied by the U.S. Navy Department._]
The next that was heard of the _Merrimac_ was that when the Federals
found it necessary to burn certain stores and ships which could not
be removed beyond reach of the Confederates after the American
War began, she was one of those set on fire and then sunk. The
Confederates, being short of ships--indeed, they seem to have
been short of everything except enthusiasm and a belief in their
cause--raised her to see what could be done with her. All her upper
works had been destroyed, and her hull somewhat damaged, but she was
held to be sound enough to be worth fitting out afresh. Accordingly,
to meet Commander Brooke’s design, she was cut down to the water-line,
and given a superstructure in the shape of an ugly, squat rectangular
deck-house with sloping sides, and was referred to afterwards by her
northern opponents as a floating barn. The over-all deck length of
this casemate was about 170 feet. Its sloping walls were framed of
pine twenty inches thick, upon which oak planking four inches thick
was laid, and outside this two sets of iron plates, formed by rolling
out railway rails, were laid, the first horizontally and the outermost
vertically. Both sets of plates were fastened on by bolts 1⅜ inches
thick, passing through to the back of the timber. The sides sloped
considerably, according to some writers 35 degrees, while others put
the inclination at 45 degrees. The intention was that any shot striking
her should only inflict a glancing blow and ricochet harmlessly. For
the same reason the ends of the casemate were given a similar angle,
but instead of being straight like the sides, were semi-circular, or
almost so. The top of the structure was covered by an iron grating,
which served the double purpose of permitting the ventilation of the
interior and keeping out missiles. This grating measured about 20 feet
by 120 feet. Her armament consisted of two 7-inch rifle guns mounted
on pivots so that they could be fired through any of the ports in the
sides of the casemate, a 6-inch rifled gun on either broadside, and
three 9-inch smooth-bore Dahlgren guns. Altogether she had fourteen
gunports. To add to her effectiveness, an iron ram was affixed to the
bow. Her stern lay very little above the water, but the highest point
of the bow was about two feet above the sea. Her conning tower, a cone
three feet high and protected by four inches of armour, was placed
beyond the forward end of the casemate. Her funnel was unprotected.
Though supposed to be renamed the _Virginia_, she never lost her old
name of _Merrimac_.
Against the wooden ships in Hampton Roads she was invulnerable. Even at
point-blank range their broadsides did not suffice to stop her. This
was her trial trip, and her engines, patched up after their experiences
in the fire and at the bottom of the harbour, could only get her along
at about four miles an hour, and her crew had never been afloat in
her before. Nevertheless her commander, Franklin Buchanan, combined
the trial trip with active service, and attacked the northern ships
with a determination which carried consternation to the North. The
wooden _Cumberland_ was blown up and the _Congress_ sunk, the latter as
the result of an application of the ram, which, however, injured the
ramming vessel so much that the future effectiveness of her ram was
greatly reduced. Buchanan was so badly wounded in this engagement that
he was unable to command the _Merrimac_ in her duel the next day with
the _Monitor_.
The _Monitor_, designed by Ericsson, was built under very arbitrary
conditions. When it became known that the _Merrimac_ was under
construction, President Lincoln advertised for something to meet her
on equal terms, and Ericsson tendered. He pointed out that the armour
plates of the _Gloire_ or _Warrior_ would be useless against the heavy
12-inch wrought-iron gun he had brought out in 1840, in connection
with Colonel Robert Stockton, and as he pledged himself that he could
complete in a hundred days a steam vessel carrying two of such guns
placed in a turret which should be armour-plated and proof against
the heaviest guns the Confederates could place in the _Merrimac_,
his tender was accepted. Ericsson was hampered in his work by the
interference of the government officials, hardly any of whom understood
his plans, but all of whom thought themselves competent to improve upon
them. Considering the limitations under which his undertaking had to be
accomplished, the _Monitor_ was a remarkable vessel in every respect.
He had to draw out his plans to scale, have all the parts designed,
see that everything was made as he designed it, and supervise the
construction of the ship and engines, and the whole of this work had to
be done within a stated time. The adventure, for such it unquestionably
was, was hailed throughout the length and breadth of America as the
work of a madman. Like all innovations destined to play an important
part in the world’s history, it was greeted with derision and abuse.
There were a few people on both sides of the Atlantic who recognised
the importance of the change in naval construction which Ericsson’s
ship inaugurated. These were they who had profited by the lessons of
the armoured gunboats or floating batteries employed by the French
and English in the Crimean War. They saw that if small but powerfully
armed ships could effectively attack powerful shore batteries, and
by reason of their shape could never receive a direct blow but only
glancing shots, a vessel carrying a circular fort which also could not
receive a direct blow must be superior to any vessel afloat, especially
if its fort or turret were so heavily armoured as to be proof against
the heaviest ordnance to whose fire it should be subjected. Moreover,
if the hull were made to offer the least possible mark to an enemy,
the difficulty of striking the vessel to sink it would be greatly
increased. The form of the vessel was such that if it were used as a
ram the weight behind the ram would be in a horizontal plane with
the ram at the point of contact, and greater injury would thereby be
inflicted upon the side of an opposing vessel than were there a greater
amount of weight above the horizontal plane.
These considerations were ably supported by Admiral Porter, of the
United States Navy, who was well aware of the value of such a means
of attack even if the propelling engines could not give the ship a
speed of more than four or five miles an hour. The gallant admiral
himself was the butt of no slight amount of ridicule by his emphatic
declaration that the _Monitor_ “is the strongest floating vessel in the
world and can whip anything afloat.” The vessel was built of iron, and
can best be described as a shallow, oblong box, with sloping sides,
having upon it a pointed, flat, shallow box or raft with a stumpy,
circular tower or turret amidships. This box or upper part projected a
considerable distance all round above the lower part, and especially
so at the stern; and had not the whole vessel been very strongly
constructed, the fearful blows which the under-part of the projection
received from the sea as it rose and fell on the waves on its passage
from New York to Hampton Roads would have driven the two parts asunder.
[Illustration: THE “MONITOR”-“MERRIMAC” DUEL. _From a Photograph of a
Contemporary Drawing supplied by the U.S. Navy Department._]
Up to the last Ericsson was bothered by the government officials.
Had he been left to himself the ship would not have had such a
narrow escape from going to the bottom. They interfered with the
turret-bearings, with the result that when the sea washed over the low
deck, the water poured into the hold from all round the turret and put
out the fires in the engine room, when the fumes drove the engineers
out of their quarters and nearly poisoned everybody in the turret
through which all the outgoing ventilation had to be made. However,
the tugs got the vessel safely into smoother water, the furnace was
set going again, and the pumps were restarted, and by the time Hampton
Roads was reached the vessel was labouring along as best it could under
its own steam and with the aid of a couple of tugs. The narrow escape
the _Monitor_ had from foundering on this voyage served to stimulate
the chorus of disapproval, and there were not wanting many on the
northern side as well as on that of the south to predict the failure of
“Ericsson’s folly.”
Ericsson had confidence in his ship. He had never forgiven the British
Admiralty for its rejection of the screw propeller, nor for ignoring
his suggestions in regard to the _Princeton_, and one reason why he
chose the name of the _Monitor_, as he told the writer and others more
than once, was that it should be a perpetual reminder to the British
Admiralty of the chance it had lost.
In the turret were two 11-inch Dahlgren smooth-bores which fired
solid iron shots weighing 135 to 136 lb. each with charges of 15 lb.
of powder, and were even more powerful than his own gun. Solid iron
stoppers closed the ports when the guns were run in. The deck had
five projections besides the turret. Right forward was a small square
pilot-house measuring four feet, and constructed of bars of iron nine
inches thick, and provided with a flat iron roof two inches thick. In
the sides of the pilot-house were narrow slits as sight holes. The
other projections were two small chimneys six feet high, removable
before an engagement, and two intake ventilators.
Neither side on the morrow shirked the coming duel. From the outset
the _Monitor_ was the better prepared. Her guns fired solid shot; the
_Merrimac_ had only shell and grape, neither of which was calculated
to do much harm to the _Monitor’s_ turret, whereas the blow of the
_Monitor’s_ shot upon the sloping sides of the _Merrimac’s_ battery was
bound to be delivered with terrific force, even though the blows were
slanting. For another thing, the southern vessel was built of wood and
had already suffered severely in the hard contest at short range with
the battleships the previous afternoon; her engines were shaky, and her
steering gear worked worse than before; and the experiences of some of
her crew, coupled with the wounding of her commander, had not been such
as to leave their confidence unshaken. The _Merrimac_ was now commanded
by Commodore Tatnall, the hero of the episode in the Anglo-American
attack some years before upon the Chinese forts at Peiho, when he
justified the participation of the Americans by the famous remark
that “blood is thicker than water.” Tatnall proved himself a worthy
successor to Buchanan.
When the _Merrimac_ sallied forth the next morning intending to
complete the destruction of the northern warships, she found the
_Monitor_ waiting for her. Notwithstanding the inferiority of his
ammunition, Tatnall never hesitated for a moment. The firing between
the two ships was mostly at short range, and by the time the battle was
over both vessels had had enough of it. Neither side admitted defeat,
but neither side had succeeded in destroying the other. The _Monitor_
was struck twenty-two times, and in return she fired forty-one shots.
Precisely how many of these were effective on the southern ship is
not known, but including the fight of the previous day, she was found
afterwards to have no fewer than ninety-seven indentations on her
armour. Her layers of plating were shattered, and the heavy wooden
backing was splintered, but not one of the heavy shots of the _Monitor_
succeeded in penetrating the _Merrimac_. The backing only splintered
where the heavy shot had struck direct blows. Nine of the Confederate
shells struck the turret, and the pilot-house was struck twice, and the
other projections and the deck also showed marks of the enemy’s fire.
The result of the battle was that the _Monitor_ was able to resume
hostilities and the _Merrimac_ was so badly crippled that she could not
do so.
The steering gear and anchor of the _Monitor_ were protected by the
overhanging deck, and were out of reach of the _Merrimac’s_ fire. This
arrangement was repeated with modifications in most of the northern
monitors afterwards built, and greatly puzzled the Confederates until
they discovered the method by which the vessels could be anchored or
lift anchor without anyone appearing on deck.
It should be remembered that the _Merrimac_ had to contend not only
against the _Monitor_, but also against the gunboats of the northern
fleet, which fired upon her whenever they had a chance.
The subsequent fate of these two typical ironclads is interesting. The
_Monitor_ was sent to sea in weather she could never hope to contend
against, and went to the bottom. When the fortunes of war drove the
Confederates away from the positions they had occupied at Hampton
Roads, the _Merrimac_ was scuttled by her commander to prevent her
falling into the hands of the Federals. Both sides went on building
ironclads of the types they had introduced. The Federals rapidly
acquired a fleet of monitors, because they were convinced of the
superiority of that type of vessel, and had almost unlimited resources.
The South built a few more broadside ironclads because it had no option
in the matter. It was a case of taking wooden steamers and plating them
as best it could with rolled-out railway metals, boiler plates, and, in
fact, anything metallic that could be bolted on.
The _Atlanta_, formerly the English steamer _Fingal_, was cut down
much as the _Merrimac_ had been, and given a heavy wooden casemate
plated with iron. The two monitors, _Nahant_ and _Weehawken_, were
waiting for her, and when she set out from Savannah to look for them,
they followed. So also did some steamers carrying a large number
of Southerners who went to see their ship defeat the monitors. The
_Atlanta_ fired one shot at the _Weehawken_ and missed, and the monitor
returned the compliment by steaming to within 800 yards and firing her
heavy 15-inch gun. The projectile smashed the _Atlanta’s_ armour and
wooden backing, and the flying splinters wounded sixteen of the crew.
She returned the fire two or three times without hitting once, but the
_Weehawken’s_ second shot smashed the pilot-house and the third started
the casemate from the deck. The _Atlanta_ surrendered in fifteen
minutes after the firing of the first shot. Her subsequent employment
was as a guardship in the northern fleet. The _Nahant_ did not fire.
The _Albemarle_, another Confederate ram of the _Merrimac_ type, had
a short but exciting career. She carried only two 100-pounder rifled
guns, pivoted to fire end-on or on the broadside. Her first exploit
was to ram the northern gunboat _Southfield_, in the Albemarle Sound;
her ram entered about 10 feet, and the _Southfield_ began to sink so
rapidly that, before she rolled off the _Albemarle’s_ ram, she nearly
took the latter down with her. The _Albemarle_ afterwards fought a
pitched battle with four northern paddle-wheel gunboats, and although
she was rammed and damaged, she held her own. Her destruction may be
said to have heralded the introduction of the torpedo boat, and for
this reason is referred to in a subsequent chapter.
[Illustration: THE “MONITOR” AND “ALBEMARLE” _From a Painting by
Müller._]
[Illustration: FEDERAL GUNBOAT “ST. LOUIS.” _From Photographs supplied
by the U.S. Navy Department._]
Another most notable example in these improvised ironclads was the ram
_Tennessee_, which was designed and commanded by Commodore Tatnall.
This vessel played a conspicuous part in the defence of Mobile
against the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut, in August, 1864.
The _Tennessee_ was admirably designed for the purpose intended,
which was that of an ironclad, heavily armed, and able to ram; but
unfortunately for her, she could not be got completely ready in time,
nor was it possible to give her the armoured protection or the weighty
artillery which had been contemplated at first; nevertheless, her
commander fought her well, and that she came absolutely to grief was
due to hasty construction and lack of material to put into her, rather
than to any fault in the design of the ship itself. Her battle with the
Union fleet shows with what grim determination the ship was fought.
“There was a brush with the ironclad ram,” says an American writer,
“but it was not serious, and the fleet came to anchor three miles up
the bay. Farragut was planning to attack the ram as soon as it should
be dark enough to prevent the garrison seeing which was friend and
which foe; but the ram anticipated him and steamed direct for the
flagship (the _Hartford_) in the midst of the fleet. The Admiral at
once gave orders for every ship to attack her, not only with shot but
by ramming, and a desperate contest ensued. The ram had the advantage
in that she was sure of striking an enemy with every blow, while the
fleet had to avoid running and firing into one another. Their shot had
no effect on the sloping iron sides of the monster, and when the wooden
vessels rammed her they only splintered their own bows and only heeled
her over. But the monitors, with their enormous guns, shot away her
smoke-stack and steering apparatus, and jammed her shutters, while one
15-inch shell actually penetrated her armour.”[38]
This heavy cannonade proved too much for her. With her armour battered,
her machinery damaged, her commander badly wounded, her steering gear
disabled, she lay helpless at the mercy of her foes and surrendered.
Another type of ironclad which the Confederates employed was known
as the _David_, because though small it was hoped it would deal as
effectively with the big northern warships as its Hebrew namesake had
dealt with Goliath of old. The parallel, however, ceases with the name.
The first American _David_ was tried at Charleston, in October, 1863.
She was cigar-shaped, 54 feet long, and 6 feet in diameter, and carried
a small steam engine to drive a small screw propeller. Her one weapon
was a spar torpedo, and when she had exploded it she was expected to
go to the bottom with such of her crew as did not happen to be able to
save themselves.
Many brave deeds have been done in war by combatants and non-combatants
alike, but the cool courage of the pilot or steersman of the first
_David_ will take some beating. Her initial attack was directed against
the ironclad ship _Ironsides_, named in commemoration of the “Old
Ironsides,” and whether failure or success attended the attempted
destruction of the ship, those on the _David_ knew they were engaged
in a forlorn hope. Only the funnel and pilot-house of the little
vessel were discernible above the sea level, and even they were not
very conspicuous. The _David_ was hailed, and replied with a volley of
musketry, and an instant later a torpedo exploded against the sides of
the warship. It lifted her and shook her, but inflicted no material
damage worth speaking of, but the moral effect was considerable, as the
Federals knew the Confederates had now devised a new means of attacking
them. At the moment of the explosion the four or five men composing the
crew of the _David_ jumped overboard, as it was thought she would be
swamped by the backwash of the explosion. She did not sink, however,
and the pilot held on to her for his life, for he was the only man on
board who could not swim. The engineer swam to her, and together they
took her back to Charleston.
On the Mississippi and the other American rivers both sides improvised
as gunboats anything that had an engine in it and a platform upon which
a gun could be carried. Small tug-boats were given turtle-back armour,
too thin to be of use, whence some of them got the name of tin-clads
in contradistinction to the ironclads; big side-wheel steamers were
protected with anything that could be utilised for the purpose, from
logs to bags of ashes, and ordinary river cargo steamers and barges
were also found very adaptable. It may, indeed, be doubted if in any
war there has been such an assemblage of opposing warships improvised
from the most unpromising materials as in the American Civil War. The
majority of them were not of great use as combatants, notwithstanding
that their crews usually handled them with reckless bravery, and
after the passage of the Mississippi mouth had been forced and the
northern warships were able to ascend the river, the fighting value of
these makeshifts became almost a negative quantity. In the absence of
superior force, however, there was no telling what they might attempt,
for their crews were as reckless as they were daring.
When the Civil War began, Edwin Stevens offered the Federal Government,
at his own expense, a small vessel called the _Naugatuck_. This was a
twin-screw vessel, which could be immersed two feet below her load-line
and raised again in eight minutes by pumping out the water admitted
into the tanks. The solitary gun was mounted on a revolving carriage,
and the recoil taken by rubber disc springs. It was loaded, directed
and fired from below the deck, the loading being accomplished by
bringing the depressed gun opposite a hole in the deck, provided for
the purpose.[39] She carried a Parrott gun, a 100-pounder, and was one
of the fleet that attacked the _Merrimac_. Her twin screws enabled her
to turn from end to end in seventy-five seconds. She did good service
on the James River, until her gun burst; her crew, thanks to her
protecting deck, escaping injury. This vessel is chiefly of interest
because of the method of placing and loading the gun.
[Illustration: THE _NAUGATUCK_.]
[Illustration: THE GUN-CARRIAGE OF THE _NAUGATUCK_.]
Ericsson’s inventive genius was responsible in 1861, before the war
broke out, for a vessel of 3,033 tons, which he named the _Dictator_,
but she was not launched until 1863, the builders being the Delamater
Iron Works. She was an iron-framed vessel, and had a wooden skin 3½
feet thick. The iron protecting her sides was 11 inches thick, 5 inches
of which were solid bars measuring 3 inches by 5 inches, and the
other portion was built up in single 1-inch plates. Her ram, a heavy
structure of oak and iron, projected 22 feet beyond the bow. On deck
she carried a single turret with an inside diameter of 24 feet. The
walls of the turret were protected by 15 inches of iron plates, each 1
inch in thickness, and weighed 500 tons. Her engine was of Ericsson’s
vibrating lever type with two cylinders 100 inches in diameter, and
indicating 5,000 h.p. The screw was 21 feet 6 inches in diameter,
with a pitch of 34 feet, and was cast in one piece, its weight being
17⅖ tons. The _Dictator’s_ armament was two smooth-bore 15-inch guns,
known as Ericsson guns, which were of the same type as he introduced
into America on behalf of Col. Stockton, and with a charge of 80 lb. of
powder, threw a round shot weighing 460 lb. The ship was 320 feet long,
50 feet broad, and drew 22 feet of water.
In the subsequent monitors the conning tower was placed above the
turret as in the case of the _Passaic_. Monitors were built later
with two turrets, and a flying deck connected them. They were of much
greater dimensions than the single turret ships, and carried twice the
number of guns, and being considerably heavier and faster and more
extensively armoured, were exceedingly capable fighting machines.
But the wooden warships were not destined to pass away without making a
gallant struggle well worthy of the traditions of centuries. The last
great battles in which they engaged were at New Orleans and Mobile,
and well they acquitted themselves. Stranded, rammed, and almost set
on fire, as they were time after time, they yet carried on an unequal
contest until they achieved splendid victories at these places. Not
even torpedoes, as mines were then called, daunted Admiral Farragut,
who, at Mobile, when a ship that was leading hesitated and nearly threw
the whole line into disorder, inquired, “What is the matter?”
“Torpedoes,” was the answer.
“Damn the torpedoes,” roared Farragut from his usual place in the
rigging, to which he was accustomed to mount in order to see over the
smoke. Whereupon his ship, the _Hartford_, assumed the lead.
On the Atlantic coast the South endeavoured to maintain its unequal
contest by means of blockade runners and privateers. Foremost among
these were the _Shenandoah_, which has the distinction of being the
only ship to carry the Confederate flag round the world; the _Sumter_,
a small commerce destroyer, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes,
who afterwards had the _Alabama_; and the last-named herself. The
_Sumter_ was described by Captain Semmes as a “stone which had been
rejected of the builders,” and he says that he endeavoured to work
it into the building which the Confederates were then rearing. “The
vessel was reported to him as a small propeller steamer of 500 tons
burden, sea-going, with a low-pressure engine, sound, and capable of
being so strengthened as to be enabled to carry an ordinary battery
of four or five guns. Her speed was reported to be between nine and
ten knots, but unfortunately, said the Board, she carried but five
days’ fuel, and has no accommodation for the crew of a ship of war.
She was, accordingly, condemned. When I finished reading the report,
I turned to the Secretary and said, ‘Give me that ship; I think I can
make her answer the purpose.’ My request was at once acceded to; the
Secretary telegraphed to the Board to receive the ship, and the clerks
of the Department were set at work to hunt up the necessary officers to
accompany me, and make out the proper orders. And this is the way in
which the Confederate States’ steamer _Sumter_, which was to have the
honour of being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag
to the breeze, was commissioned.”
He got her into shape somehow, and she began her adventurous career
by running the blockade in a most daring fashion at Pass a l’Outre,
in spite of the presence of the _Brooklyn_, which was faster and more
heavily armed. She beat the northern ship simply because she could sail
nearer to the wind. After six months’ experience of this ship, he says
that “in her best days the _Sumter_ had been very inefficient, being
always anchored, as it were, in the deep sea, by her propeller whenever
she was out of coal. A fast ship propelled entirely by sail power would
have been better.” She captured seventeen ships, consistently dodged
five or six northern ships, and at last had to be laid up at Gibraltar.
She afterwards sailed as the _Gibraltar_ under the English flag as a
merchant vessel, and made one successful voyage as a blockade runner
to Charleston, South Carolina, and went to the bottom of the North Sea
soon afterwards.
The _Sumter’s_ battery consisted of an 8-inch shell gun pivoted
amidships and four 32-pounders of 13 cwt. each for broadside firing.
The slide and circle for the pivot gun were constructed of railway
iron. She captured seven prizes in two days, and escorted six of them
into the harbour of Cienfuegos at once.
The _Alabama_ was built at Birkenhead under a contract with the
Confederate States, and was paid for out of the Confederate treasury.
“The _Alabama_ had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When
she was contracted for, no question had been raised as to the right of
a neutral to build and sell to a belligerent such a ship.”[40] Be that
as it may, the settlement of the _Alabama_ claims proved an expensive
item for Great Britain. She was responsible for the destruction of no
fewer than sixty-seven American ships, and such was the terror she
inspired that the armed frigate _Kearsarge_ was sent to hunt her down
and exterminate her. Soon after embarking on her privateering, the
_Alabama_ fought and sank the _Hatteras_ in the only engagement she was
concerned in until she met her fate at the guns of the _Kearsarge_.
There was not much to choose between the ships in size, but in all
other respects the advantage lay with the northern ship, which had
further strengthened her sides with a concealed belt of chain cables.
“As for the ships,” writes Captain Semmes in “Service Afloat,”
“though the enemy was superior to me, both in size, staunchness of
construction, and armament, they were of force so nearly equal,
that I cannot be charged with rashness in having offered battle.
The _Kearsarge_ mounted seven guns--two 11-inch Dahlgrens, four
32-pounders, and a rifled 28-pounder. The _Alabama_ mounted eight--one
8-inch, one rifled 100-pounder, and six 32-pounders. Though the
_Alabama_ carried one gun more than her antagonist, it is seen that the
battery of the latter enabled her to throw more metal at a broadside,
there being a difference of three inches in the bore of the shell-guns
of the two ships. Still the disparity was not so great but that I
might hope to beat my enemy in a fair fight. But he did not show me a
fair fight, for, as it afterwards turned out, his ship was iron-clad.
It was the same thing as if two men were to go out to fight a duel
and one of them, unknown to the other, were to put a shirt of mail
under his outer garment.... By Captain Winslow’s own account, the
_Kearsarge_ was struck twenty-eight times; but his ship being armoured,
of course, my shot and shell, except in so far as fragments of the
latter may have damaged his spars and rigging, fell harmless into the
sea. The _Alabama_ was not mortally wounded until after the _Kearsarge_
had been firing at her an hour and ten minutes. In the meantime, in
spite of the armour of the _Kearsarge_, I had mortally wounded that
ship in the first thirty minutes of the engagement. I say ‘mortally
wounded her,’ because the wound would have proved fatal but for the
defect of my ammunition. I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her
sternpost--where there were no chains--which failed to explode because
of the defect of the cap. If the cap had performed its duty and
exploded the shell, I should have been called upon to save Captain
Winslow’s crew from drowning, instead of him being called upon to save
mine. On so slight an incident--the defect of a percussion cap--did the
battle hinge. The enemy was proud of this shell. It was the only trophy
they had ever got from the _Alabama_. We fought her until she would no
longer swim, and then we gave her to the waves.”
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS--ATTACK ON FORT PHILIP. _From a
Contemporary Steel Engraving, showing improvised warships employed._]
The _Shenandoah_ was the name given by the Confederates to the
Glasgow-built auxiliary steamer _Sea-Horse_, which was the only ship
to carry the southern flag from Dixie’s Land to the Cape, thence to
Australia, and up to the North Pacific. She found her chief prey among
the American whalers.